This invention relates to luggage cases such as business or attache cases. More particularly, the invention relates to cases having two main compartments for carrying and, in some cases, organizing the contained personal and business related items, the compartments being separated from one another by an internal, hinged, divider panel.
Such cases fall in generally two groups: the first are softside cases made of fabric or leather-like material, often unstructured in a generally large envelope shape. The other general class of cases includes hard outer structure or covering divided into a lid shell and a base shell which are hinged together along the bottom side. The base shell usually has a handle attached to the top face for carrying. The lid shell and base shell are normally selectively held closed together with a latching device. In business cases, it is quite common to include a portfolio section comprising a number of vertically arranged flexible dividers which are attached to a divider panel hinged along the bottom inside edge of the lid shell. The entire portfolio construction is held on left and rights sides by flexible gusset panels which permit the divider panel and the intermediate dividers behind the divider panel to hinge out. This exposes papers, documents and the like for easy access.
The base shell generally provides a large compartment for carrying clothing items or stacks of papers, books and other items. An example of such a brief case is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,756,639 assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Here, in addition to showing the features mentioned above, the case includes a gravity responsive detent 41 which prevents the operation of the latch lever 17 if one tried to open the case upside-down. This prevents the papers held in the main shell from spilling out as is shown in FIG. 2 of that patent. U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,286 to Yamamoto, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, shows an attache case with another gravity sensing feature. However, rather than preventing the case from opening at all if the case is improperly oriented, Yamamoto teaches providing gravity sensing means to control the extent of opening of the lid shell. In particular, if the case were lying in a horizontal position, the ball bearing detent located in a slot in the lid stays would permit the case to open fully. However, if the case were opened from a vertical position, the ball would fall into a slot to in effect shorten one arm of the stay. The lid shell would be prevented from opening fully, thus contents in the main shell of the case wold not tend to fall from the case. However, its likely that at least some of the contents of the main shell would fall to the bottom of the case even if such contents were prevented from falling completely out of the case. It would be difficult to shut the lid because of the accumulation of contents (papers, pencils, tape recorder, etc.) in the bottom of the case while the lid was even only partially opened.
One solution to this is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,017. Here, an attache case is shown with a divider panel hinged to the bottom wall of the base shell. When the divider 25 is clipped in place, the contents of the base shell are both hidden from view and generally prevented from falling out of the case should the case be opened in an other than horizontal position. The divider panel 25 provides a writing surface so that the case can be used as a desk. However, the divider panel 25 must be moved from one position to the other after the case is opened. Thus, if access to shirt 24 or the like was desired, the case must be opened, then the divider pad pulled from its latched position over the shirt and preferably holding devices 23 clipped to hold the divider pad in the vertical position within the lid while accessing articles 24.
Thus, none these prior art cases include means for automatically permitting access to either the contents of the portfolio portion while holding the contents of the main portion of the attache case from spilling out of the case or from moving to the bottom of the case. Nor do any of the above prior art cases provide means for automatically permitting access to the portfolio portion of the case when the case is opened from a vertical orientation and for permitting access to the contents in the base shell of the case when the case is opened from a horizontal position.
Also, these prior attache cases do not have a way of organizing small items, such as pencils, sunglasses, etc., for easy access when the case is only partially opened. Some prior cases have pencil boxes and such but they are arrayed along the hinged side of the case, thus requiring the user to fully open the case to easily access these small items. Also, many attache cases have small pockets along the front face of the portfolio divider panel for airline tickets, business cards and the like. Here again, in order to access these relatively small, flat items, the case must be substantially fully opened, thus exposing the contents of the base shell or permitting the displacement of such contents and thus preventing the case from fully closing again.
There have been business cases and hand luggage, both soft sided and hard sided, with exterior zippered pockets, extra pencils for accessing interior and exterior compartments and the like. Such extra compartments do permit selective access to the contents of the case, that is, they do keep portions of the case closed while one opens these extra compartments. However, such extra access openings complicate the construction of the case and must be provided separate locks and latches if such security is desired.